The coming of the NFL Network's complete set of Thursday night games means that every team in the league has to deal with a new tiring and inconvenient burden each season: the three-day prep week.

It's the Philadelphia Eagles' turn to suffer through the compressed Thursday game week when they host Cincinnati tonight at Lincoln Financial Field (8:20 p.m.).

The Eagles approach the game as a necessary annoyance, something not relished, but something that has to be faced.

"You have a short turnaround, and you have to take care of your body and do the necessary things to get ahead of the game," defensive end Trent Cole said. "We've just been taking care of our bodies as of right now and cramming everything we can cram in. I won't say it's difficult, but we just have to cram it in as much as we can. We have to go out there and play ball."

The Eagles most recent experience with the Thursday night game wasn't especially pleasant. Last December the Birds headed to Seattle and were thrashed by the Seahawks 31-14 in an especially ugly loss.

Head coach Andy Reid said he learned a lesson or two from the loss but pointed to the pregame travel as a problem.

"The league looked into that and the East coast to West coast, I don't think the results had been very good for anybody," Reid said. "(We) went back and looked at the process that we did. We changed a couple things but not that much. There's not a whole lot of changes you can make. We were lucky to have the preseason Friday game where we could put ourselves on a Thursday night schedule. We did that and we worked a couple of things out. It's more with the reps and the number of reps as opposed to changing everything up."

The Eagles will have several advantages heading into their first home game with Cincinnati since 2005.

First, no wearying trip to Seattle. Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen may have been speaking for all NFL players earlier this year when he said, "I mean, I couldn't imagine getting on a plane (Wednesday), just from the standpoint of bumps and bruises, swelling on airplanes."

The Eagles will avoid that, and, as Eagles wide receiver Jeremy Maclin said, gain a bit of an edge.

"One thing about the short week is that the teams who have played at home have a little bit of an advantage," Maclin said. "We're going to try to use that and just go in there and play hard. That's all we can do."

NFL home teams are 38-26 on Thursday night, excluding season openers. So Philadelphia has a significant trend in its favor.

And third, the Birds (4-9) come in with the emotional surge from snapping a 70-day, eight-game losing streak in Tampa on Sunday.

"Winning cures a lot, so it's good to finally get a win," Eagles linebacker DeMeco Ryans said. "Winning puts smiles on everyone's face. Everybody's in a better mood. It's just better morale around when you get a win. We're just looking forward to doing that again (against the Bengals)."

Meanwhile Cincinnati (7-6) suffered through a late collapse in a 20-19 home loss to Dallas that put a Kris Kringle-size crimp in the Bengals' playoff hopes.

"The good thing is we're one of maybe 15 teams that are playing for something," Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden said. "We still had to win the last three anyway in my opinion and we still do."

The Eagles aren't playing for anything except a strong finish, a spot on the Birds' 2013 roster, and for pride and to please the fans.

"Losing, and the way we've been losing, we've been losing some tough games and guys have been fighting hard and trying hard," Cole said. "It starts to become emotional, and having a win is just great for us as a team and as fans as well."

A win tonight would likely mean a successful effort by rookie quarterback Nick Foles against a Marvin Lewis-led defense, which would be another plus in Foles' development.

Foles threw for an Eagles' rookie record 381 yards in the win over Tampa Bay, but that came against a pass defense ranked last in the league.

The Bengals' pass defense is nothing like that, ranked No. 10 overall and sixth in the league in sacks per pass. Defensive tackle Gene Atkins has 10.5 sacks, remarkable for a 300-pound tackle, while end Michael Johnson has 8.5. A physical secondary is led cornerback Nate Clements (47 tackles, interception) and safety Chris Crocker (three interceptions).

"(Cincinnati's defense) has been together a while, in particular the coaching staff, and they've got all of the wrinkles figured out there," Reid said. "The players are good against both the run and the pass, and they do a lot of things in the secondary. They do a lot of things with fire zones and blitzes that you have to be ready for, and I'm talking from a quarterback's standpoint and a protection standpoint. They do everything that you can do to maximize a defense, and they're going to show you."

Reid that presets a special challenge for Foles on a short week.

"From a young quarterback's standpoint, you have to put in the time and make sure that you are in there and exhaust the little bit of time that you have," he said.

Foles seems confident, which after his performance last week where he led the Eagles on a late comeback for the win, he may be entitled to be.

"They're a good defense," he said. "I'm going to have to do a great job with blitz pickup and we need to execute our offense. The big thing is (just to) run our offense well and execute well. It's going to be a tough task for us but we have to stick together, play well on all sides of the ball and play together as a team."

Foles said the Bengals' pass rush will challenge an Eagles offensive line that seems to have stabilized a bit with the addition of veteran Jake Scott at right guard.

"I know it's a great task for our offensive linemen," Foles said. "I know they're going to be ready to go, so blitz pickup and just one on one is going to be big. We just have to win the battles."